Habakkuk

0:00 If I could offer you an exclusive interview, and you had the opportunity to sit down with God and ask him one question, what would you ask? I'm going to set some ground rules. We're not going to let him, you can't ask for more questions, you know, it's not one of those situations. And let's just resist the temptation to ask sort of trivia related questions like, did Adam have a belly button? Or, you know, how old is the earth? Or something like that. This is our one chance, right? We want to make it count. I think if we did have that opportunity, you know, some of us might have a theological question to ask. You know, how can we, can you give us something more to help us understand the Trinity? How does that work? Or the incarnation or something along those lines. Or maybe we might ask questions that are more of what we would call an ontological nature, right? Like, who am I? You know, what am I really here for? Why am I the way that I am?

0:57 Something like that. But I think if we really drill down, we give it some time and think about it, a lot of the questions that we ask really would be moral questions. Why did this thing happen to me? Why did this bad thing happen in the world? Or why did this good thing happen to this person when they didn't seem to deserve it? Now, I think wondering about those questions is really natural and healthy for human beings to do. You know, we are hardwired to know what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what's unfair, and you know, that's part of who we are. And so it's good for us to try to seek understanding, and especially to try to seek it from God.

1:38 Now, unfortunately, I can't offer you exactly that opportunity this morning, but I can tell you about somebody who did have that opportunity, and it's Habakkuk. That's where we're going to be this morning in the book of Habakkuk, an Old Testament minor prophet. It's found on page 785 if you're using one of the Red Pew Bibles. If you're not and you need help finding it, the best thing I can tell you to do is go to Genesis, turn left to the table of contents, and look at what page it's on, and find it that way. It's close to Matthew, so if you get to Matthew, turn back a few pages, you'll find it. Habakkuk, like Jonah, is one of the minor prophets of the Old Testament. And if you were here during Greg's series through Jonah, you'll remember that minor prophet is not, we're not, you know, ascribing, we're not throwing shade on these guys for being small or anything like that. It's just that they're a short book. It's relatively short in comparison to the major prophets, the bigger books. In fact, we'll be able to read the whole thing this morning.

2:36 And in a lot of ways, Habakkuk is a book that's like Jonah in the sense that the focus of the book is much more about the dynamic between the relationship between God and the prophet than it is about the prophet's message to the people. It's mostly essentially just a prayer journal that Habakkuk kept through a conversation with God. Now as far as Habakkuk the man goes, we don't really have anything else about him in scripture. There's nothing else mentioned. What we do know though is with some degree of certainty is the time that he's writing. So during this age of the prophets, the nation of Israel has been divided into two kingdoms, the north, what becomes known as Israel in the south of Judah. And in the year 722 BC, Israel finally paid the price for their serial idolatry, and they fell to the Assyrian empire. And you remember when we were in Jonah, you know, around that time, right before this happened, is when Jonah went and preached to the Assyrians. So that's just for context, right? And the nation of Judah in the south was following a

3:39 similar trajectory. They were just a few years behind their brothers in the north. Now on the world scene at this time. There's a power struggle. The Assyrian Empire is declining. The Egyptians are kind of always there jockeying for power. There are the Medes and the Babylonians. And over the next century, eventually, Babylon would emerge as the next world power in the early 600s BC. And it's in the midst of this kind of this chaotic world around him, this declining culture within the nation of Judah, that Habakkuk asks God his question. And the answer to his question is, is God's message to Habakkuk, it's God's message to us this morning that I hope we see, is that as God's people, we are called to live by faith in God's promise of perfect justice. So live by faith in God's promise of perfect justice, I think is the message that Habakkuk has for us. Now, we're going to consider that structure in three points this morning. Why wait and worship? So why wait and

4:40 worship. So let's look at Habakkuk chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw, O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Or cry to you, violence, and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity? And why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife and contention arise, so the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth.

5:15 For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted. Now we see right from the beginning that this is an intense book. Habakkuk is, he's in distress. He's in need of help. He's witnessing violence. He's surrounded by evil. He talks about destruction and strife and contention and injustice. These are dark times. And this is especially troubling because these are internal problems within the nation of Judah. These are God's people. They're supposed to be a priesthood to the world, and yet they look just like the world.

5:53 And notice Habakkuk's main question, how long? This isn't just Habakkuk reacting to a really bad day, right? This has been a season of intense watching and grieving and praying. Meanwhile, evil is continuing among God's people. And he's asking God, God, why don't you intervene? Why don't you do something about this? God, where are you? I don't understand. Do you think that's an okay question to ask? I think it's important to note that it seems to stem from a right view of God, right? Habakkuk knows that God is good, that God hates evil, that he's powerful and able to do something about it. These are true things about God. And more importantly, like any relationship where there's conflict or confusion or misunderstanding, Habakkuk brings his question, his struggle with God, to God. Now maybe you can relate to his question. Spend a little time

6:54 in the news, scrolling, whatever else, and I think you may find yourself quickly asking why. There's violence all around us. It seems every day there's a new development related to human trafficking or war or terrorism, violence within our country. There's injustice, there's the oppression of women, the oppression of children, the oppression of the poor, corrupt governments. It seems like in our country, there's just a steady stream, a daily almost stream of reports of violence. We're surrounded by confusion about God's design for human beings. We debate the status of unborn life in the womb with a trail of 60 million murdered babies since 1973.

7:40 And even in the church, we see injustice and strife and sin. Why are there so many leaders who don't submit to God's word, who preach that God's will is your comfort and your happiness right now, and that the reason you don't get what you want is because you don't have enough faith? Why do so many focus on entertainment rather than faithfulness? Why have known abusers been just quietly dismissed to move on to pray somewhere else? Why?

8:14 I don't think there's any indication that Habakkuk really is being sinful in asking his questions. And in fact, we'll see that God uses Habakkuk's question to actually teach about himself. And so if you're here this morning and you have questions like this, I think it's okay. And I want to encourage you to ask those questions. Don't let them sit. Don't let them stew inside. We're going to think about, you know, what faith actually is. And it's not just blind trust. It's not deliberate ignorance. One of the worst things you can do is just let those questions sit inside unspoken, unexpressed, unanswered, because they grow and they spread and they weaken your confidence in God's word. So ask your questions. If you've got questions, ask them.

9:00 But ask them with your Bible open and ask them on your knees and ask God to reveal himself to you and give you peace about the things that trouble you. And it's probably wise if you're in a situation like that to maybe go to a Christian friend that you trust and say, hey, I'm struggling with this. And maybe that can set the two of you on a quest together to study and pray and grow in your understanding of God. You know, God doesn't give us every answer, but there are a lot of good answers out there. There's a lot of things in the Bible that the Bible has to say about this.

9:32 There's a lot of things other Christians have written and experienced, you know, both people that are alive now and people that have been dead for a long time. But there's a lot of helpful things out there. So don't let those questions just sit. And I just think it's encouraging that the Bible allows us to do this. The Bible allows us to go to God. He's not threatened by our questions. He allows us to ask him. But even more amazing than the fact that God lets us ask him questions like this is that God answers questions like this. So let's look at verse five.

10:07 Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded, for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome. Their injustice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves.

10:40 Their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle, swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings, they scoff. At rulers, they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. So Habakkuk says, God, God, why aren't you doing anything?

11:16 And God answers him and says, oh, I'm doing something. I'm not ignoring this evil in Judah. I have my finger right on the pulse, and I am bringing judgment. And in fact, I'm going to use the Chaldeans, that's another name for the Babylonians, to bring judgment on my people, Judah. and we can tell by the description that this is not going to be pretty he describes them as a a bitter and hasty nation they are proud they define justice and dignity for themselves and they're violent they are big and fast and strong and they utterly destroy everything in their path they are predators and judah is the prey and they stampede and rip and claw and tear and devour. No kings, no armies, no fortresses stand in their way. They seize, devour, gather, scoff, pile up, and take. Total devastation.

12:22 Now I wonder, and you might be wondering too, if Habakkuk regretted his question. Maybe I don't want to see justice quite as badly as I thought I did. After Israel had fallen into Assyria in 722, Judah was on a similar path toward idolatry. And during this time, King Josiah was raised up and he led some reforms after they found a copy of God's word. And they implemented those reforms and took down idols and everything else.

12:53 And there was a short kind of reformation in Israel before they continued back on the path to idolatry. And I wonder if Habakkuk didn't kind of have that in his mind, if he had a second revival, you know, for the right king to come in and clean things up and fix everything and then for Judah to rise up once again. But that's not what God has in mind. And I think that forces on us the question, you know, are we prepared for God to answer our prayers in ways that we don't expect?

13:25 Do we pray to God because we've already solved the problem, we've already worked it out in our own mind, and we just need God to sign at the bottom and endorse our plan and our will for our lives? Or do we make requests to him in humble acknowledgement of our inadequacy, of our limited knowledge, and of his greatness and his omniscience? So just to put a really fine point on it, you know, maybe we're here, maybe many of us might be bothered, concerned about the trajectory of our country? Are we prepared for God to act according to his will and not ours? Are we ready to trust him just as much if he installs somebody we think is a bad president as a good president? And even if we found ourselves in a situation like this to be invaded by another nation, would we still trust our God and his care for us? One of the great themes of the Bible is that God always gives us what we would have asked for

14:25 if we knew everything he knows. But you know that we only know what he knows from an eternal perspective, right? God is always working for our eternal good so that we share in his holiness. And so often we don't have the foresight to see how suffering and trials and the thing that God brings to us are the means that he's using to form our character, to build endurance and to put our hope in him. We would never make plans like that for ourselves, but we can't get holy by ourselves.

15:00 And so God's answer is unexpected. It makes the situation even more complicated, and sometimes God does that because he's God. He's sovereign, and we're not. He's the creator, and we're the creation. And so we have to assume that his mind is bigger than ours. We're not always going to get everything he's doing and understand why. So how will we respond when God confuses us? We see Habakkuk, his response in verse 12 is troubled.

15:32 Are you not from everlasting? O Lord, my God, my Holy One, we shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment. And you, O rock, have established them for reproof. You, who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, Why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.

16:03 He brings all of them up with a hook. He drags them out with his net. He gathers them in his dragnet, so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offering to his dragnet, for by them he lives in luxury and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? So Habakkuk begins this response with several references to God's character.

16:34 His name, he's eternal, he's the covenant God, he's personal and relational. He's the rock, he's unchanging, he's reliable. And I think that this is a statement that reflects trust, or at least an attempt to trust God. And there are some who interpret this as an accusation that Habakkuk is saying God's actions are actually contrary to his character. But either way, I think what Habakkuk is wrestling with is just confusion. This is how God has revealed himself to be in the past. This is what God has said about himself, and he's about to do something that feels utterly contradictory to that. God, I don't understand. How can you use them? Right? Sure, we have our faults and everything, but but them, they're more violent, more greedy, more oppressive, more idolatrous. It seems completely unjust. And so Habakkuk expressed his concern to God and we see his resolve in chapter 2 verse 1.

17:33 He says, I will take my stand at the watch post and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. Now the idea of the watchtower is this is a military position. This is a high tower usually on the corner of the wall of the city, and it's a place where the watchman would stand and watch for enemy armies coming, right? That was his job was to see them coming and to alert the city to get ready. And I don't think Habakkuk is using that to call God his enemy, but I do think he's seeing an analogy between his position as the prophet to see what God is doing and understand it and communicate that to the people and the watchman's job in a military sense. And so he's positioning himself metaphorically as a watchman. He's expressed his concern to God. Now he's going to see what God is going to do.

18:24 He assumes there's an answer, and he waits for that answer from God. So again, if that's you this morning, if you relate to Habakkuk's struggle, what are you going to do about that struggle? Are you going to entrust it to God? Will you take it to him and bring that concern to him and lay it out and even wrestle with him about it? Or will you make your own conclusions and go your own way and leave him? Well, that brings us to our second point. Wait. Let's read verses two and three.

19:00 The Lord answered me. Now, let's just pause right there. The Lord answered me. This is God's grace to Habakkuk, isn't it? He doesn't, God doesn't defend himself. He doesn't have to say anything, right? But he does. He graciously and merciful answers Habakkuk's concern. And here's his answer. Write the vision. Make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time.

19:33 It hastens to the end. It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not delay. So God says, here's a vision for you, for my people, for everyone. Write it on tablets, print it in the headlines, reply all, share, tweet, pin. Let everyone know this is what is going to happen. And this is what his message is. He says, I, the Lord God, am sovereign. And there is an appointed time for justice.

20:07 I have set that time and everything is running exactly according to schedule. I'm working all things together after the counsel of my will. Nothing thwarts my purposes. So notice that God's question or God's answer to the question is it's about timing. If it seems slow, that's on you. That's your impatience. I don't work on your schedule. It will happen because I have made it so. so God's answer is that in order to understand what's going on in order to make sense of what he's doing in the world you have to see the whole picture you can't look at a moment and make conclusions about what God is doing and who he is you have to wait until the end and then he goes on in verses four and five to really summarize the whole section here behold his soul is puffed up it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. Moreover, wine is a

21:09 traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol. Like death, he has never enough. He gathers for himself of all nations and collects as his own all peoples. So God is saying, there is no injustice. Just as he will use the wicked Babylonians to judge the sin within Judah, so he will not let their sin go unpunished. Their day will come. And by extension, that's true for all those who do evil.

21:42 And what this section teaches us is that there are fundamentally two kinds of people in the world. There are the righteous and the wicked. The proud, the greedy. One life is characterized by indulgence, by consuming, by selfishness, by using. And there's never enough. It's a bottomless pit. No amount of stuff will ever satisfy. And the other is characterized by humble dependence upon God, by obedience to God's word, by waiting, or what we would call faith.

22:15 And verse 4 is a crucial verse here. The righteous shall live by faith. So the question for you is, how often do you live? Sort of an odd question. But it illustrates, I think, what it means to live by faith. See, living describes, it's a manner, it's a way. It's not an activity, it's not something you do. It's a how instead of a what. So true faith, saving faith, isn't something that you step in or out of like a uniform that you put on to do your job for a time and then put it away.

22:53 It's not something you can put on once a week when you come to church or, you know, for a few minutes before bedtime or mealtime or something like that. It's not something that you do. Faith is a manner of life. It's a way of thinking and speaking and acting that is always informed by and responding to the realities of who God is and what he's done. So faith, shortly, is simply is taking God at his word. It's hearing God's word and accepting God's word as the authoritative interpreter of reality and then acting in response to that. So the person who lives by faith lives by faith instead of strength or looks or instinct or wit or humor or abilities, accomplishments, friends, family, parenting, all those things. Faith becomes the governing identity.

23:47 Faith interprets reality on the basis of what God has revealed about himself and the world, and then it takes shape in all those various forms and all those various things as faith seeks wisdom for where God has placed us. So the other path is the path of the Babylonians. They do not live by faith. They live by their own name, their famous wine, or possibly that should be translated their wealth. But either way, God says it's a traitor. it will betray them. We love stories about justice, right? Think of like, you know, Jason Bournes or the Jack Ryans or lots of other things like that, like where there's some government conspiracy, somebody's the scapegoat for that, and he somehow manages to evade the system and expose and, you know, turn it all over and show that it's the senator from Vermont is really the problem or something like that. You know, we love stories like that.

24:46 One of the stories of my family, about 100 years ago now, my grandfather was in young elementary school and was dealing with some bullies, older kids who were just mean and did all sorts of unkind things to them. And one day on the way home from school, so there's my grandfather's probably like in first grade, they were like, let's say middle school and then high school kids. So the middle school kids were the bullies, they were mean, and they took my grandfather's hat and started running away with it. And the high school kids who had been observing this for a long time decided that they had had enough. And so they had arranged where one of them was hiding behind a tree and knocked the middle school kid down, took my grandfather, set him on top of the middle school kid, put a brick in his hand and said, hit him.

25:27 Boom! My grandfather popped him in the mouth and I think he lost like four teeth. And that was South Georgia justice. There was no drama after that. The kids left him alone. The parents never said anything, right? That was, in their mind, the punishment fit the crime, I guess. Well, beginning in verse 6, God pronounces five woes of judgment against Babylon. And those verses show that God has perfect payment in store for all those who oppose him.

26:04 And so we're going to read through those together, and I'll just comment a little bit on the way. Verse 6. Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own, for how long, and loads himself with pledges. Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoiled for them, because you have plundered many nations. All the remnant of the people shall plunder you for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to the cities, and all who dwell in them.

26:37 So in other words, he says they've conquered, they've intimidated, they've plundered in order to make the whole world indebted to them. But their debtors will rise up and band together and overthrow. The plunderers will be plundered. Verse 9, woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples. You have forfeited your life, for the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond. So in their conquest, they've amassed resources from all sorts of places. They think they've created a secure place to live far away from enemies, insulated and safe. But God says even the house itself will cry out and condemn them and come crashing down upon them in judgment. Verse 12, woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that people's labor merely

27:40 for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So they're seeking to build a name for themselves by any means possible, but God says their buildings are just fuel for the coming fire. And God assures them that in the end he will triumph and his name alone will stand. Verse 15. Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink. You pour out your wrath and make them drunk in order to gaze at their nakedness. You will have your fill of shame instead of glory.

28:19 Drink yourself and show your uncircumcision. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them. For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. So God says they've lived by humiliating others through drunkenness and violence and perversion, but they will drink the cup of God's wrath against them, and he will expose them as nothing. And finally in verse 18, what prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it? A metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in its own creation when he makes speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake, and to a silent stone, arise. Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath in it at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him.

29:27 So the Babylonians have lived in idolatry, but their idols are powerless. They are nothing. And cannot stand against the one true and living God who speaks from his throne. So in all of these oracles, God is reminding Habakkuk that he is not blind or indifferent to anything that Babylon is doing. He sees all of it. He records it. And he promises to bring every bit of it back on them. And we know in history that he did.

29:59 He raised up another foreign power, the Persians, who overthrew Babylon in 539 B.C. And God's justice is perfect. And that's good news, isn't it? Not one of our complaints goes unanswered. God sees all of the evil taking place around us. He doesn't allow any of it to go unpunished. He will bring about perfect justice. Sometimes that comes in real time. But the Bible assures us that there's a day coming when every secret will be revealed.

30:31 Every evil thought, every word, every deed will be called to account. And in the final judgment, God will expose and punish everything. But that's also really, really scary, really bad news, isn't it? Because each of us deserve judgment for our sin. The same seeds of greed and pride and selfishness and security and violence and idolatry are in our hearts. And God sees them, and God knows them, and God will bring about absolute justice.

31:06 So the only way out of this justice, according to Habakkuk, is to live by faith. And this is something that's made really clear in the New Testament because both Paul and the author of Hebrews rely on this text to interpret the gospel. Paul says in Romans that God provides righteousness to those who live by faith. And in Galatians, Paul contrasts the faith in the law, and he says the one who lives by the law keeps living by the law, keeps trying to live by obeying the law, by performing what the law says, or by implication dies by failing to keep everything the law says. But the righteous person lives by faith. Faith that God forgives sinners, that he declares them righteous, that he gives them eternal life. So faith means relying on God to provide salvation from his coming judgment by trusting him with your life and your future and your eternity.

32:01 But that, if you think about it, actually introduces a new problem, doesn't it? How can God do that? If God is righteous in dealing out judgment, how can he also forgive others? And the answer to that question, friends, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world to save sinners. And he lived a life of perfect obedience to God. He suffered and was crucified as a criminal. And then on the third day, he rose from the dead. And God has maintained his perfect righteousness because he poured out his wrath. He judged Jesus for sinners. Jesus stood in the place of sinners by taking the judgment we deserved and by offering his life of perfection as a sacrifice and therefore God is just. God upholds justice because the only person who could object was Jesus and Jesus willingly submitted himself to death and so God can forgive because he has dealt justly with sin. So if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, that's the message that you have

33:06 to hear. The only way to respond is to confess your sin to God, to repent of it, and to look to Jesus in faith. Seek God's word, lock arms with God's people, and learn what it means to follow Jesus. If you're here this morning and you are a Christian, is that the message that defines your life? The author of Hebrews encourages Christians to persevere through trials because the righteous live. They keep living. They go on living by faith. So is there a place where you're tempted to lose sight of the gospel? Live by something other than faith in Christ? So if there is, friend, confess that to God. Ask him for help to repent and ask brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for you, to help you. God's answer to Habakkuk is not what he expected.

34:02 And often, God's answers to us are not what we expect. He says, I'm doing way more than you realize. Be silent, wait, and watch. So how do we respond to that? I think that leads us into the last point, worship. So in chapter 3, you see the structure changes a little bit, and Habakkuk responds to this situation, this conversation, with a song. and in chapter 3 verse 1 and verse 19 this is not just a song for himself but it's something written to the nation it's for for the Psalter it's written to teach Judah about worship and to lead them back to God and so let's look at this chapter together a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to the Shagayanath oh lord I have heard the report about you and your work oh lord do I fear. In the midst of the years, revive it. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. God came from Timon and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His splendor covered the

35:09 heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light. Rays flashed from his hand, and there he veiled his power. Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and shook the nations. Then the earth, sorry, then the eternal mountains were scattered. The everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways. I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction. The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

35:42 Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the rivers or your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses on your chariot of salvation? You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and writhed. The raging waters swept on. The deep gave forth its voice. It lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear. You marched through the earth in fury. You threshed the nations in anger.

36:20 You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters. I hear, and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones.

36:54 My legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor the fruit be on the vines, The produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food. The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's.

37:26 He makes me tread on my high places. To the choir master with stringed instruments. So Habakkuk responds to God's revelation with this prayer song of worship. And so let's just take a few moments to observe some of the components here of worship. First, he fears God. Worship fears God. Habakkuk responds with fear, this reverential awe that becomes the central gravitational force in his life. He says, you stand alone as God.

37:57 You've spoken, I've heard, you are all powerful and you do as you please. second worship also embraces god's purpose so habakkuk doesn't just submit to what god is doing he embraces it he asks for it he says lord revive it make it known third worship pleased pleads for god's mercy the true worshiper understands that that he is absolutely utterly dependent upon god to show him undeserved kindness.

38:31 We aren't entitled to anything from God. And so any good that God does to us is mercy. And Habakkuk models that. Fourth, worship rehearses God's deeds. So in this section, we see that Habakkuk goes back, kind of a biblical survey of what he knows to be true about God from his word, from his experience with people. And in this section, he weaves together many of God's mighty acts throughout history and anticipates. He looks forward to a future and greater demonstration of that same power and same character. So he says God is a mighty warrior. He stood and measured the earth. He has a bow and a spear in his hand. His splendor covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light and rays flashed from his hands.

39:19 This picture of this warrior, I love verse 11, it's so bright that the sun needs sunglasses. God is sovereign over nature. The whole world trembles before him. The mountains shake and crumble. They bow down to him. The sea lifts up its hands as if to surrender in worship. The sun and the moon move and stop at his beckoning. He controls the pestilence and the plague. But he's also sovereign over people. It says he looked and shook the nations. He marched through the earth in fury.

39:51 He threshed the nations in anger. he crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying them bare from thigh to neck, piercing them with their own arrows. No one, no one can oppose him. And all of God's majestic power has been disposed for the good of his people, for his anointed king. God has always been and continues to be at work to save his people for the purposes that he's accomplishing through his king, his anointed, the son of David, the son of God, through ultimately through Jesus, right? He brought them out of Egypt. He brought them into the promised land. He spread the sea. He buried Pharaoh's army under the sea. He stopped the Jordan River for the people to cross. God's people have been time after time in impossible situations, and yet God has never abandoned them. He always delivers them, and he will do so again.

40:46 And just notice how much of this prayer is Habakkuk talking to God about God. In fact, the only requests in this whole thing are in verse two, revive your work, make it known, remember mercy. Most of his prayer is rehearsing truths about God to God and responding to them. That's probably something helpful for us to do as well. Fifth, we see that worship trembles at God's majesty. So in response to this survey of God's mighty works, Habakkuk is undone.

41:20 It's like many other encounters with God throughout the Bible. In comparison to God, Habakkuk is weak and frail and small and ignorant. He feels the weight of his unworthiness in relation to God's greatness, and this puts everything else in perspective. And so then sixth, he resolves to rejoice. On the basis of seeing God, Habakkuk can face the coming judgment not with despair, but with trust, with faith. And those words in 17 to 19 are some of the most beautiful words, I think, in all of the Bible. As he talks about that destruction that comes on the livestock and everything, it's important that we remember that he's not talking about, you know, a hobby farm that kind of didn't go so well or some raised beds that didn't produce. He's talking about utter desolation. Though the bank account is empty, though the credit cards are maxed out, though the stock market crashed, Bitcoin is zero, I'm unemployed, my house is foreclosed, there's no

42:20 food in the pantry, there's no clothes in the closet, no gas in the tank, my phone is dead and I lost my charger, right? Like that's essentially what he's saying. There's nothing. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord and take joy in the God of my salvation. You see, for Habakkuk, security and provision and joy, they go beyond his circumstances. Things may go from bad to worst, but he says, if I have God, I have everything.

42:54 God isn't just a philosophical problem for him to solve. He's his God. He's in a personal, covenant, committed relationship with him. He's his savior. And so he says God is his strength, just like a deer on a cliff. You know, if you watch Planet Earth or Meat Eater, depending on whose side you're on, you'll see these, like, certain kinds of breeds of goats and deer and things like that that walk on what looks to be just sheer cliffs.

43:26 Like, you look at it and think that's just a wall of stone, And yet, they have these footholds, and they have a way to navigate and get around, and they're perfectly safe from predators. They are stable, and it's just the way that God has created them to be able to navigate that, to find footing, to balance and survive in that environment. And Habakkuk looks at that and says, that's exactly what it's like to live by faith in God. On the outside, it looks perilous and even impossible, and yet he knows he's just like that deer. He can take refuge in the mountains. No one can get him. His relationship with God makes him utterly secure so how do we get to a place like that well I think we do the same thing Habakkuk did we remember who God is and what he's done we listen to his word we look to God and let's just appreciate that from our vantage point today in 2024 we have a much better view than what Habakkuk did Habakkuk looked into this cloudy future saw dimly the vindication of God's

44:27 anointed one, we look back and we see Jesus. Jesus walked the same path that we've looked at this morning. In the garden, Jesus asked, why? Why can't there be another way? And God said, wait, as he came upon him in judgment. And then on the cross, Jesus said, into your hands I commit my spirit. And he worshiped. So brothers and sisters, Jesus sympathizes with our questions. He knows what it's like to wait. He leads us in worship to trust God even unto death. But more than our example, Jesus is our substitute. He went through all that for us so that we would never have to endure the wrath of God. Our song is so much more developed than Habakkuk's because through the gospel we can see God's perfect justice and his unfathomable mercy with so much more clarity. And we just read it a few minutes ago from Romans chapter 8. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

45:24 Amen. Such a glorious passage. But Paul doesn't say that God's love keeps us out of tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or sword. He says that even in those things we cannot be separated from God's love. The gospel is the evidence for that. And that's what it means to be a Christian. It's to live by faith to the end, to trust God despite sometimes dark and difficult providences, to see everything that you're experiencing in light of the gospel and to trust God's love. One of the hymns that we sing regularly is the hymn, It Is Well. And a lot of you know this, but Horatio Spafford was a successful and wealthy businessman. He was involved in using the profits from his business to support the work of Christian ministries. I mean, he lives the life that a lot of us aspire to, I think.

46:21 until the year 1871. His only son died. And shortly after that, a great fire caused him significant financial harm. And in order to recover and rest from this family tragedy, he and his wife planned a vacation to England just to get away, kind of reset. And he sent his wife and his four daughters ahead of him to England. And during that voyage, their ship was struck by another ship and sank. And 226 people drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, including all four of his daughters.

46:57 And he received a telegram from his wife with two words. Saved alone. Utter devastation came upon this family. What would you have done if you were in his shoes? I'm sure at some point he asked God why. Why did this happen? But he didn't stay there. On the ship to England to be reunited with his wife, he wrote these words. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows, like sea billows, roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.

47:42 Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ hath regarded my helpless estate and hath shed his own blood for my soul. My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. Now brothers and sisters, that is what it looks like to live in faith, to move from the wise of our circumstances to the worship of God's sovereign justice and mercy because our greatest burden is sin and God has dealt with it fully and finally on the cross.

48:23 And one day Jesus will return and bring us into the very presence of God. In this life, sorrows and trials will come. Satan is at work, but Christ has regarded us and died for us and risen again to secure our place with him in glory so that it is indeed well with our souls. the Bible tells us that Jesus is going to return as a mighty warrior king to bring about final judgment, to tread the winepress of the fury of God's wrath, to squash his enemies like grapes.

48:59 But for those who live by faith in him, that day is a day of vindication and salvation from God's righteous judgment. So friends, let us live by faith in that truth. Let us wait eagerly for the day of the Lord and let us help each other to do so, saying together, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight. The clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with my soul. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we confess that we are in awe of who you are, Lord. We know so little.

49:42 We understand so little. You are eternal. You have worked throughout history. Lord, we marvel at the glory and greatness of your power and your wisdom. And so, Lord, we pray that as we face doubts and confusion in this life, you would settle our hearts. Help us to focus on the cross and the glory of what you have done for us in Jesus. Help us to trust your future justice and to celebrate your mercy to sinners. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.